It has been a long competition and it would be beneficial to summarise the contestant’s performances. Here is what the contestants did throughout the three weeks of competition:

In the beginning it didn’t look like Cool Cat would make it into the competition, but when she did and had to talk about herself, she admitted that she is bulimic. She overeats and then she gorges grass to induce vomiting, so she will still look her best. In skills week she presented a self-made dress to look different than all the other Dedes in their dreary black robes. Sadly in the last week, when it was her turn to answer a question, she allowed Top Dog to push her aside and answer instead of her. Her coolness seems to be just skin deep.

Push Push, the elephant, revealed in the first week she is a sponsored puppet. She had intended to make her owner proud by showing off her new ballet routine, but the idea was squashed by the tiny stage, and Push Push was in tears. Luckily when asked whether the Dedes will ever make films, she dug out the footage of her old routine and got accolades for it.

Court Jester, doesn’t take much seriously and laughs about those who can’t laugh about themselves. However, when he was asked how it feels to be poor he got very serious and said feeling rich or poor is primarily a state of mind.

Skeleton Edeltraut was never entirely sure about her participation. On one hand she believes it would be good to come out of the closet, on the other hand she deems keeping secrets her most valuable skill. Though she was quite happy to blurt out the Dedes’ secret. She revealed they had invented the Artist so they could communicate with humans. And it is by no means the Artist who teaches the Dedes, but rather the Dedes are educating the Artist.

And finally Monkey, who wants to be a comedian, but sort of failed. In the first week he touted the ‘Artist’s Survival Cookbook’ because he features in it with a banana pancake recipe. His skill of juggling a banana on his nose didn’t float anyone’s boat. In Q&A week he explained the Dedes’ two native languages: ‘Dada’ and ‘No Evil’ and lamented the demise of ‘No Evil’ lately. It seems to be the more difficult language to learn.

And this was it for the competition. The readers had the weekend to vote and Mouse, as always when a big event comes to an end, fell ill. For two days she had to stay in bed and Devil brought her hot cups of tea and bowls of chicken soup.

And then the winner was announced. Drum roll….

The Super Dede 2018 is PUSH PUSH

The little elephant couldn’t believe it. There were too many stumbling blocks along the way: first she nearly didn’t make it. Remember, Foxy Lady forfeited her ticket in favour of Push Push.Then the stage was too small and she couldn’t perform her ballet routine she had prepared for skills week. Luckily, someone asked whether the Dedes will ever make films, which gave her the opportunity to present an old performance on tape. One excellent skill Push Push certainly has: perseverance!

The next thing was to draw and notify the lucky winners of the cookbook. Mouse still isn’t quite recovered from her after-event depression and while they were packaging the cookbooks she asked Devil: “Now that this is done, what’s next?”

“What do I know” he answered and shrugged his shoulders, “We have to answer this lazy Artist!”

“Mhm, we no longer can blame the Artist for our demise” Mouse pointed out “since Skeleton Edeltraut revealed she is only in our imagination. We do have to find another scapegoat!”

Last week the competition started in earnest. And the contestants had to talk about themselves. Push Push was first up. But she started with a complaint. The stage was too small for her.

Devil reminded here that she should talk about herself and why she wanted to take part in the competition. “Well,” said Push Push “it is a little known fact, that I am a sponsored Dede. That means I have been sold to a collector. Since I forgot to send my sponsor a Christmas card last year, I felt obliged to take part in the competition to push my value up”

Cool Cat was taken by surprise that she made it into the competition and she let us in on her secret: “I am a fashion girl and want to look my best. When I first didn’t make it into the competition I was so upset I cooked myself a huge meal of mouse, my favourite. And then when I heard I made it, I had to eat grass to throw it all up again. What a waste!”

“Who likes Mouse pie?” asked Monkey. “I like pancakes with banana and I think the committee should announce that any comment in the competition goes into the draw for the ‘Artist’s Survival Cookbook’.” He showed the readers the page with his recipe in the book. “Stop it!” said Devil from behind the curtain “tell us something we don’t know!”

Monkey took a deep breath and said proudly “Once, an old lady said, I looked like Obama!” and then he added with a lower disappointed voice “but I think she wasn’t wearing her glasses.”

Skeleton Edeltraut wasn’t too sure anymore, whether her decision was right. “Everyone said I will feel so much better, when I come out of the closet” she said while she was tightly holding on the curtain. “Now I am no longer sure, whether I can do it. You know, this is a point of no return. Once I am out, there is no going back! The door will be closed forever!” The readers were very supportive and encouraged Skeleton Edeltraut to continue.

Court Jester was taken aback by the whole event. “OMG” he sighed, “are my competitors really taking it that seriously? Where is the fun in their lives? What the heck, I dress up as Leprechaun and have a pint of Guinness. Cheers!”

And that was the end of the first week.

Now the next day Mouse had to make good for her omission. “Monkey is right,” she admitted very embarrassed dragging a copy of the Artist’s Survival Cookbook on stage. “I have forgotten to mention that any comment during the competition goes into the draw to win our flour and water recipe book. I so wish Detail was here, she certainly would have reminded me, but she is still missing.”

The competition is always very stressful, so on Sunday Mouse and Devil needed to have some time out. They went to the beach, sat on a bench and didn’t talk all day.

Well, it should have been all easy peasy. But you would not believe what happened last week. As usual, the readers voted who will take part in this year’s Super Dede competition. To give all contestants the same chance, voting closed on Tuesday, two days after the last contestant was introduced. Unfortunately the management committee gave an example on how someone could still affect the temporary result. If someone wants Eve L. gone, they could leave a comment on Cool Cats post. NOT COOL at all. Sure enough two people followed that ‘advice’ and left a comment on the cats post, with the result that Cool Cat passed Eve L.

Of course Eve L was not taking it lying down. As we already know he was working on a complaint but miraculously he also got a comment from St Petersburg, Russia. (Truly, I could not have made this up!)

No idea what it says**, but nifty as Eve L is, he figured out the rules mention comments but don’t stipulate the language or whether the comment makes sense.

The next day Mouse, the organiser, wanted to chuck it all in after she looked the the revised vote count.

“This competition is such a mess.” she said. “Now Cool Cat and Eve L. both wiggled their way into the competition and they pushed Push Push, the elephant out. ”

Devil had enough of the kerfuffle “I am making an executive decision here” he said firmly “Eve L is under suspicion of colluding with a foreign power and should be barred from this year’s competition!” Does anyone dare to disagree with Devil?

Meanwhile Push Push was so anxious whether she gets in this time, that she did her own recount and had to find out that Foxy Lady did better than her as well. Honest as she is, she admitted the fact to Foxy Lady “nobody seemed to have noticed that you have a point more than I as well.” Luckily, Foxy Lady absolutely hates talent shows and patted the elephant sisterly on the back while she replied: “And we won’t tell anyone either. With your colourful circus personality you will do so much better than I. I am just a cranky old liberal academic. No one seriously wants to see me in a talent show!”

Well, she hadn’t reckoned with our readers. Sure enough someone said “I do!” But by then voting had closed.

Finally the group picture of the five contestants was released. Not a particularly happy bunch, I must say. Who can blame them. After these two chaotic weeks, they were totally exhausted and they were allowed to go off for a weekend of golfing to get a good break before the competition starts in all seriousness today.

Problem is, the Dedes can’t play golf at all. Gifting them a golfing weekend just sounded good. So, how do the Dedes relax? They went to a spa anyway. Sitting in a hot tub is no good either, as they are not water tight. To make the best of it Cool Cat treated herself to a massage by Chance. Pity the Dedes have no bodies and a massage is somewhat wasted on them too.

…To be continued next week.

**PS: We tried to find out from enders_production what their comment meant. While they responded, they didn’t engage with our request. It happens that we have Russian friends of our own and even though we did not get a direct translation from them either, we were told it is a word of encouragement. And we opted to believe it.

Contestant No 7: Rob D Light. With Devil’s supportive words, Rob D Light mustered all his courage to enter the competition. He has a bit of a handicap, as he has a dust allergy and has to wear a kerchief in front of his mouth at all times. Because of this, he is currently unemployed and with no fixed abode. He is desperately looking for a job, though. In the meantime he has volunteered to help Devil building the stage for the competition. He really hopes he will get into the competition and people will change their minds about him.

Contestant No 8: Skeleton Edeltraut. She simply believes it is a liberating move for every Skeleton to come out of the closet at one stage. Nothing much is known about her, but that is the nature of things. Isn’t it?

Contestant No 9: Eve L. He wants to be part of the Super Dede Competition as he believes every show must have a nasty character and he certainly can fill this position very nicely, thank you. The big question is, could a nasty puppet become Super Dede?

Then Lapdog had difficulties deciding on the last contestant. He went to seek advice by the management committee. His dilemma was that Top Dog wants to be part of the competition as he is convinced he is the best Dede ever. However, Lapdog who has the job of canvassing the contestants, can’t stand the narcissist and doesn’t want to give him a change. Luckily Foxy Lady, (who already tried to kill Top Dog once by pushing him of a shelf) stepped up. While she despises talent shows she offered to step up, just to sidestep Top Dog. Lapdog wondered if this approach was ethical. But the committee left the decision up to him.

Contestant No 10: Foxy Lady. Well as we know, she is not a fan of talent shows, but she strongly believes that the likes of Top Dog need to be stopped. For the benefit of all, she had to snatch the last free space from the narcissist.

In the last competition, there was a complaint at the end of the canvassing procedure. Top Dog strongly believed he didn’t make it into the competition because he was last to be introduced. ‘Fair point’, said the management committee and changed the rules. This time the viewers have until Tuesday to get behind their contestant and for now they published the preliminary results only for everyone to see where the contestants stand at this point in time.

Until Tuesday the readers can add comments to their preferred contestants and by doing so add points to their tally. Every comment counts 5 points. For example, if you want to push Eve L out of the competition, add a comment to Cool Cat and Eve L is a ‘goner’. Unless of course someone else enters a comment to Eve L.

Well, the committee should not have given this strategic example. Miraculously Cool Cat got two more comments over night and left Eve L. in the dust.

Sure enough, this morning Top Dog and Eve L were seen huddled together over pieces of paper writing up complaints.

The Dedes realised they need a project. Their little society has become too divisive in the last year, with Top Dog always wanting the limelight. When brainstorming, most were in favour of running yet another tried and trusted Super Dede Competition. However, Mouse, the organiser, who has to do most of the work, asked if the competition could be run on one platform only. The Dedes have currently a very active following on Instagram, so she decided it will be there. But don’t worry, we will report on the progress here on the blog, a nice little weekly summary with some additional background information.

At the moment the contestants are introduced. One per day. (The Dedes don’t want to flood the readers with information and keep pretty much to one post a day). As in previous years, there will be 10 puppets to choose from, with five making it into the three week competition. The selection is strictly on likes and comments. While every reader has only one like per contestant, they can have more than one comment. A like counts as one point and a comment as five.

Here are the contestants that have been introduced so far:

Contestant No 1: Court Jester. He makes fun of everything and never seems too serious. ‘Seems’ is the operative word here. If you care to listen, he actually makes a lot of sense. He also had to put his name forward, otherwise the next contestant wouldn’t have agreed to give it a go.

Contestant No 2: Snotty Nosed Prince. He appears to be arrogant and doesn’t want to mingle with commoners. One can be never sure, whether he has a wicked sense of humor or whether he is deadpan serious. Listening to his words, one only hopes it is a wicked sense of humor!

Contestant No 3: Monkey. It is no secret he does everything for a banana and a laugh. He tried to get into the first Super Dede Competition in 2013, but didn’t make it. Of course he would be heart-broken if he didn’t make the cut again.

Contestant No 4: Push Push. The elephant was told by Monkey, there will be bananas and she wants to have her fair share. Besides, her therapist said she has to work on her confidence.

Contestant No 5: Junior. When he was born he was given this baseball cap by Top Dog to set him up for life. Sadly Junior had to find out the hard way, that a cap doesn’t necessarily make one great. Now he wants to prove he is good for great things.

Contestant No 6: Cool Cat. In the last competition Cool Cat had put Alley Cat forward as a representative of the feline fraternity. Alley Cat didn’t get in though, so this time it is Cool Cat’s turn to prove the worthiness of cats. The two couldn’t be more different and we have to see if this cat fares better.

And this is how far we got. Four more contestants to introduce this week. Lapdog the gender-fluid little dog, who won the competition last time has a hard time to find volunteers. He is adamant not to give Top Dog a chance, so he is hard at work convincing some indecisive ones.

Cool Cat was only introduced this morning, so her results are not in yet. However here is a sneak preview how every one is doing after the first week:

The loser is definitely Snotty Nosed Prince. Yes, arrogance doesn’t seem to be attractive to our wider audience. He has 45 likes and two comments.

With the other ones, everything is still possible. The forerunner a the moment is Court Jester with 56 likes and 6 comments, followed by Monkey with 52 likes and 5 comments, Push Push 50 likes and 4 comments and Junior 51 likes and 2 comments.

Competition is fierce!

Meanwhile on the journey across the property to get materials for the stage, the odd jobs worker Rob D Light confided in Devil that he would rather like to be on stage than building it. Devil was most supportive for Rob to give it a go. We have to see if he is brave enough to approach Lapdog to put him on the list!